Умный регион/Направления/Региональное многоязычие/en

Smart Region.RU
Using possibilities of Wikimedia projects for supporting regional development of the Russian Federation

---

Main page

About

Strategy

Dimensions

Wiki-Lists

Regions

Ethnicities

Multilingualism

Stats

См. также: Smart region/Multilingualism

“	If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.	”
— Nelson Mandela

“	"Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today ... less than 5% ... can still ascend to the digital realm. ... To summarize a key result of this study in advance: No wikipedia, no ascent."	”
— András Kornai

“	[T]he time has come when ... a language has become only a tool, another means of expressing reasoning patterns. ... A language that continues its development is usually being used in all areas of life. Excluding the language from use in some field of human activity, be it some specific scientific discipline or a type of artistic pursuit, an industrial or services sector of economy, i.e. from generating more reasoning patterns, is blowing an irreversible damage that promotes language death. ... It's very important to aspire towards such a state of things, when any news are expected to be expressed by that specific language means.	”
— Gaynulla F. Shaykhiev

“	"The paradox related to preservation of language and culture is that they can only stay active by welcoming changes. Only dead languages and cultures can be fully preserved against change."	”
— Annika Pasanen, Janne Saarikivi

“	"Young people need language-related attractive role models to be interested in associating themselves with their heritage language. Such areas of language use as home and school are no longer good enough, folklore culture with its nostalgia of the past is not exciting at all. But constructing youth culture from outside is difficult — only youth itself can create its own culture and role models. This great challenge encountered by the modernizing community of the local language speakers requires attention."	”
— Annika Pasanen, Janne Saarikivi

Regional multilingualism is about developing and applying of domestic cultural diversity and multilingualism resources for strengthening emotional engagement of Russia's population in regional development and raising social productivity. Particularly significant effects are achievable through systemic work with speech communities using various state and official languages of Russian Federation subject regions.

What for?

English and a few auxiliary languages (UN official languages & some others) are enough for communication purposes within Information society predominantly present in urban environment. Meanwhile, principle competitiveness of humans and their groups in a globalized society depends on non-standard creative thinking, flexibility of the mind and ability to switch between behavioral models. Thus multiculturalism is no more a humanitarian hobby for rich idealists, but a way to support competitive advantage on an international and inter-regional levels.

Multilingualism benefits for individuals:

• Economic,
• Cognitive,
• Psychological,
• Personal,
• Medical,
• Intercultural.

Why bother

• Other things being equal, speakers of non-dominant language are readier to engage in publicly beneficial volunteering activities if this directly helps strengthening vitality or widening applicability of the language they hold dear, as this has direct effect on improving their psychological calm and comfort levels.
• Those learning target languages or relying on them as mediums of instruction show higher motivation when educational tasks they perform on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are having positive impact for a much larger audience.
• Using regional languages with active Wikimedia projects allows newbies to practice and develop many skills in spaces, where minimal expectations and requirements (formatting, referencing, notability, etc.) are much easier than in more widely read English or Russian language ones, where community expects much better preparation of material.

General recommendations

• Transferring as many printed publications (books & periodicals) and electronic materials in sub-national regional/indigenous languages into Public domain (particularly publicly funded ones) or Advanced licensing formats for Free Cultural Works in order to increase freedom of their circulation and simplifying cross-cultural sharing
• Supporting citizens' information volunteering to grow publicly-useful information in domestic language versions of Wikipedia, as well as other Wikimedia projects in their respective languages.
  • Helping in preparation of thematic lists of necessary encyclopedic articles
  • Sponsoring article contests on topics of interest
  • Promoting public participation in Wiki-Seminars, Wiki-Conferences, Wikimedia Education Program and GLAM projects (see Cultural Heritage dimension)
• Establishing conditions for active participants to start forming Wiki-Clubs that would later evolve into Wikimedia User Groups or maybe even community-funded Wikimedia thematic organization directed at systemic development of informational infrastructure necessary for preservation of accumulated cultural knowledge to stay attractive for current and future generations when lifestyles evolve and personal cultural prism grows ever wider.
  • Offering targeted grants for participation in regional, national, international conferences and seminars to promote thematic local achievements and getting exposed and enriching themselves with best available practices elsewhere.
  • Promoting importance of such community center responsible for assuring conditions for preservation of long-term vitality of the heritage language that carries ancestral wisdom.
  • Linking financial support with proven progress in achieving goals and key indicators that was discussed and publicly adopted by the members of such an entity.

Roadmap

См. также: Smart region/Multilingualism/Tatar и Умный регион/Татарстан/Межведомственная рабочая группа/en

• Support priority language nominations within content-creation contests
• Use language-specific Wikimedia project spaces for implementation of projects by those:
  • learning the language
  • studying in the language
  • using the language

See also

• International Mother Language Day 2018: 170 wikis in 79 languages of Russia (Russian)
• Wikimedians of Russia reporting about own participation @ Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2018
• Pageviews statistics

References